2010 USSSA Conference Music City Classic Recap

Tournament #8 on the Conference tour made a stop in Gallatin, Tennessee outside of Nashville for the annual "Music City Classic". This tournament was dominated by Resmondo/Specialty Tank/Phonemasters who went undefeated 5-0 and knocked off Fence Brokers/Gametime Supply/Worth in the winner's bracket finals Saturday night 32-17 and EWS/Shirts and Logos 30-10 in the Championship Sunday morning. Resmondo was taking teams right out of the game in their first innings by putting up big runs and then decimating the competition with great defensive plays. In that winner's final vs FBI, Resmondo led 23-3 early on, and in the first inning had a great running catch by left fielder Brian Rainwater, a great play on a hard short hop by Don Dedonatis, and a fence robbing catch by center fielder Scott Striebel. Game, set, match…before it even started.

Hustle like this by first baseman Howie Krause further separates Resmondo from the rest of the Conference

Larry holds the Major Division winning trophy

Friday night the tournament weather was perfect as Conference teams dominated the local 'C' and 'D' teams to the tune of 6 mercy rule games. The one upset, although I wouldn't really call it an upset, was Down2EarthSports who beat Art Explosion 20-11. Late Friday night a massive thunderstorm rolled through and created a delay on Saturday morning of 3 hours. The loser's bracket games, for the most part, were changed to 5 innings in length. When the tournament resumed at 11 AM on Saturday morning it was more of the same as the local teams were pounded game after game.

The second round found a few good matchups as Jean Shoppe battled Hubs Pub to a 23-19 victory over on the back field #5. In the heat of the day the performance of the Dudley Classic M .40 core ball fell off significantly and was used on 3 of the 5 fields where the fences were 300 feet. On the show field and one other diamond where the fences were 325-375-325, the stadium ZN ball was used and it flew well all weekend long. The second round also found Suncoast battling back from a big deficit to beat Down2Earth 32-27 and Midwest Swing knock off AJS 20-17 on a walk off homer. Also Logo Express batted around in the 7th to knock off a gritty Fowl Ball Sports team 19-15.

In the third round of the winner's bracket FBI squeaked past Logo 10-7 in the heat of the day when the ball started dying on the smaller fields. EWS jumped out to a big lead against Suncoast and hung on when Suncoast ran themselves out of two innings 24-19. Aubreys crushed a hot Midwest Swing, and Resmondo's Greg Hartwick hit a walk off homer to beat Jean Shoppe 17-16.

In the winner's semi-finals FBI outlasted EWS 18-17 in a game that could have gone either way. Resmondo beat Aubrey's 29-14.

Resmondo cruises through another tournament. They do so, knowing help is soon to be on the way, in the form of former Resmondo CF Bobby Hughes who is rumored to have been picked up. I cannot emphasize enough the tremendous defense that Resmondo played most of the weekend as they run ruled all but one of their opponents (Shoppe).

Resmondo gets by Shoppe on a walkoff homer, the only time they were threatened all weekend

Greg Hartwick hits a walk off homer to beat Shoppe. Can you say Long Haul Bomber Tour?

EWS has shocked the softball world all season and finished 2nd in this tournament. If you were to project the top 16 in Conference based on AVERAGE points scored per tournament played so far, EWS would be the 3 seed at the Major World Series!

EWS knocked off 2 local teams before jumping on Suncoast early. When Suncoast made their comeback, EWS shut them down by throwing out Luis Reyna at the plate and adding a few insurance runs to win 24-19. Then they lost a close one to FBI 18-17 in a game they had a few chances to pull out. In the loser's bracket they rattled off impressive victories over Jean Shoppe Saturday night 24-18, AJS Sunday morning 35-5, and then FBI 19-7 to make it to the Championship against Resmondo. In the Shoppe game Brandon Riese ended the game with a spectacular diving catch down the right field line.

EWS played without Mark Holstein but returned Dustin Palm, Tim Nielson, and Mike Umshied to the lineup.

EWS catcher Tommy Thompson was Offensive MVP for the second consecutive week!

FBI played without SS Pat Burton. They looked pretty good except for that low output 10-7 win over Logo Express and the first couple innings against Resmondo in the winner's final. And now that I look at the stats that have been posted, they did have quite a few guys with some low onbase percentages. FBI scores some nice points considering they really only beat one good team. Of course thats what you get when you have early success and score the #2 seeding.

John Glidewell and Perry Hensley were very deserving all tournament team players this weekend.

AJS lost their 2nd round game to Midwest Swing in the bottom of the 7th on a walk off. In the loser's bracket they made an impressive run to Sunday by Suncoast 28-5 in the most impressive offensive performance of any team in the tournament on the baseball show field. Then they knocked off Logo and won a shootout with Aubrey's 27-21 before losing to EWS on Saturday morning.

AJS is out playing their opponents with defensive grit and big innings offensively. They get on huge momentum rolls in their wins on offense and have a timely "big play" defense. David Garcia in LF made the best catch of the tournament on a hard sinking liner hit by Aubrey's.

TJ Thompson in my opinion outpitched everyone in the tourny except Purcell. Adam Rockoff was an impressive 27-29 .931 with 11 homer's, 31 RBI, and 25 runs scored. AJS had some clutch homer's as seen below in the youtube clips.

The difference between good defense and bad is often the willingness to "sell out"

Shoppe lost early to Resmondo after Earl Bryant hit a big 3 run homer to tie the game at 16 in the top of the 7th. Their points position forced them into a bad seed once again and it cost them by having to play Resmondo that early in the tournament. Shoppe recovered some in the loser's bracket as they withstood a 14 run rally by Fowl Ball Sports to win 24-21 on a walkoff homer by Earl Bryant. Earlier in the tournament it was Bryant again who had a big homer and Tim Cocco who had 4 HR's to beat Hubs Pub. Bryant finished 18-21 .857 with 7 HR and 18 RBI. In their 2nd game in the loser's bracket they knocked off Down2EarthSports before getting knocked out by EWS in a game that Shoppe pressed to come back in.

Jean Shoppe struggled in each of their games and had to fight for that 5th place finish. The June/July return of Jamie Gordon should help, but this team is too talented to be struggling. Of course it is still only May. In my opinion Shoppe is still the 3rd best team in the country.

Aubreys was missing what seemed like half of their team. Absent was John Bailey (fatherhood, congrats), Bryan Goins (bicep?), and Kevin Rye. The team still managed wins over Team Chub and Midwest Swing but couldn't compete with Resmondo and couldn't keep up with AJS at midnight Saturday night.

We'll give Aubrey's the mulligan this week, but they need to compete a little better when they are missing a few guys. "Run what you brung" as we say in racing.

Down 2 Earth Sports/Worth was the highest finishing non-conference team. This team is loaded with Conference talent and experience and should consider joining in the future. They beat Art Explosion to start the tournament and beat Midwest Swing by 1 late in the loser's bracket. They also had a big lead over Suncoast but ended up losing in a shootout 32-27.

Logo Express batted around in the top of the 7th of their 2nd round game and held on to beat Fowl Ball Sports 19-15. Then they lost that "dead ball" heat game against FBI 10-7. In the loser's bracket they won impressively over Hubs Pub 31-12 before being run ruled by AJS 26-11. Brandon Murray and Matt Blanton led the way with .700+ onbase percentages. Murray added 6 HR.

Lee Daniels from Logo Express

Logo beats Fowl Ball Sports 19-15 with a big 7th inning

The Rest

I've watched enough of Fowl Ball Sports to know this team is legit. They just need some time to learn how to win in the Conference and understand what it takes to play the longer games.

Midwest Swing is legit. This team has a bunch of talent and although they are a year away from competing for a 'B' title, they could pull some big upsets. The Mazzier brother's, Alverado, good group.

Team Chub, I'm a fan. At first in Phoenix I thought this team was a little too full of themselves but I have since changed my mind. This team hits the ball hard and can compete well with the 'B' teams in the Conf.

Hubs Pub had a bad draw, having to play Shoppe in the 2nd round, but played fairly well in that game and had a chance to win.

RUMOR MILL

I am hearing that Sinister picked up Todd Joerling and Doug Shanyfelt Jr.